The UN now published the Human Development Report 2003. The report is warning, that since the 90's, 21 countries experienced declines in life-expectancy, education and income per person, some of them drastically. The UN sees a worldwide "Development Crisis". For a short overview I recommend reading this Press Release. The whole report and further press releases are also available. You may also wan't to take a look at the country specific data and the Human Development Index, ranging from Sierra Leone to Norway. German readers may read also the article Armutszeugnis from Telepolis. If someone is into this topic I would appreciate a short comment from an anthropological viewpoint.

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The history of the shuar is a website which has this title also a little bit to conceal that it's true target is to show some creepy shrunken heads. Via Das Kollektiv

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"Cherchez le Chercheur" No. IX

Fieldwork is a hot issue if one considers the stressful and delicate situations, the packed places and of course the striking sun that the researcher has to cope with. This photographer was most eager to get the very best shots the royal funeral scenes were offering to her - and had to immerge totally into the hot and dusty crowd. The photographic results were certainly impressive ones...

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With the Hutchinson Dictionary of Difficult Words. ;-)

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FQS is a peer-reviewed multilingual online journal for qualitative research. Established in 1999, we are re-organizing FQS by setting up broader information and communication resources for qualitative researchers, supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. You can access the page also in german. They provide articles, reviews and debates to that topic. I also found some interesting stuff regarding ethnograpgy and fieldwork. For example this article from 2000: Ethnography on the Move: From Field to Net to Internet

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just found a phenomenal documentation of a Conference on "Culture and Public Action" from Sunday, June 30th, 2002. Organized by the Worldbank, Arjun Appadurai, Stephen Gudeman and other prestigious anthropologists and social scientist talked with Nicolas Stern, Amartya Sen and other presigious economists about culture and economy. there are lots of papers and video documentation of the whole day.

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Some links to ressources of anthropology and internet, found at University of Regina:

• The Internet and Usenet Global Computer Networks: An investigation of their culture and its effects on new users. A Masters thesis by Tim North. (c) 1994. The thesis is an anthropological look at the culture of the Internet and Usenet.
• Anthropology Nine Hundred Years After the Invention of Hypertext. David Zeitlyn.
• The Future of the Past: Archaeology and Anthropology on the World Wide Web. John W. Hoopes.
• Applied Anthropology on the Internet

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By accident I just found a really weird paper from 1997. It's only purpose is to educate anthropologists in the use of animated images (Anim-GIFs) for presentation of research. It was published in CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY METHODS.

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An article of June 20 in the NY Sun about a congress hearing on anti-american biases in US universities. quotes: " A House subcommittee yesterday held a public hearing to investigate whether anti-American views pervade federally funded international-studies programs on college campuses — including Columbia and New York University — and to get ideas for what, if anything, should be done about it.

"The chief critic of the programs at the hearing, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanley Kurtz, singled out two New York institutions that he said fostered anti-American sentiment: Columbia University, the employer of Professor Edward Said, whom Mr.Kurtz said was the founding father of anti-Americanism in international studies programs, and the Hagop Kevorkian Center of the New York University,for its Web site, which features essays critical of American foreign policy after September 11, 2001.

"making ideological diversity a component of federal funding on par with gender diversity.

read the article

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In the June edition of Current Anthropology, Adam Kuper discusses the essentialisms that are present in the current struggles of "indigenous" people for their rights and the contradictions that arise from the assistance of international organizations, development agenices and NGOs. quotation: "As always, our conceptions of the primitive are best understood as counters in our own current ideological debates. The image of the primitive is often constructed today to suit the Greens and the anti-globalization movement. Authentic natives represent a world ... in which culture does not challenge nature. at the same time, the movement exploits the very general European belief that true citizenship is a matter of ties of blood and soil." Kuper's paper is followed by comments in the "CA Forum on Anthropology in Public" the contents of the whole issue you can view online. The printed version is accesible in Oettingenstr. 67, Munich.

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New examinations have disproved present theories of the death of Iceman Ötzi in Südtirol/Italy, who died about 5300 years ago.

Die Wahrheit liegt manchmal im Darm: in Form von Pollen der Hopfenbuche zum Beispiel. (...) Eine menschliche Leiche, die unversehrte Pollen der Hopfenbuche im Bauch hat, kann daher unmöglich im Herbst gestorben sein. An sich wäre das eine Randbemerkung der Forensik, ginge es nicht um einen besonders merkwürdigen und seit Jahren intensiv erforschten Todesfall.

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Something different, but interesting and up-to-date as I think! The Süddeutsche Zeitung published a short article today on the "dispute about special needs" in Greece.
Athens wants to loosen the restrictions on the oldest business of the world just because of the Olympics 2004. But the Orthodox church is "excited" !!! ...

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